Building a framework for living #14: The starting point
Once again, I am back on the trail walking through the woods on a sunny afternoon that occasionally comes to grace us when transitioning from winter to summer. It is a beautiful crisp sunny spring afternoon.
Spring is the time of the year for our souls to thaw from its introspection during the winter and embrace the prospects of soaring again.
On the trail, there are signs of resurgence of life. Like our souls, everything else wants to soar.
The trail also has a quaint wooden bridge to walk across a narrow creek.
Walking over creek sometimes I wonder, where did it begin? From a spring beneath the surface? From the collection of small drops sliding down the slope coalescing into a fledging thin stream? It is something like when drops run down the side of a glass filled with chilled water on a humid day, and along their journey downward pick others to form a small puddle at the base.
The thought of the beginnings of the creek reminds me that everything has a point of origin. The ultimate beginning for everything around us is the Big Bang from which we all originated. Because of that, like a genealogical tree but vastly more intricate, the Big Bang is also the point of universal connectedness.
Another and much more personal beginning is the day I was born. Starting from that moment, sixty-five years later I am sitting on my laptop, lost in introspection, occasionally touching the keyboard to put my thoughts into words.
Between the day I was born and now, there is much that has come and gone by. Sometimes though I think that I still have not grasped the right perspective of time.
The years of childhood feel so far away, and yet, months and years seem to pass in a hurry. We are already near the end of the March and ¼ of the 2023 is now behind.
But let us stay with the discussion about the beginnings, particularly about where to begin in the context of building an appropriate framework for living for ourselves and be successful in achieving that goal.
The framework for living I have in mind is finding a way to live that reconciles my awareness of mortality with my need to live.
If I do not have the framework for living it could be hard for the rest of the journey that remains.
Knowing that it is all going to end, and now having that awareness, I must find a way to feel engaged and have a sense of fulfillment as moments tick by. If I fail, life would be filled with cynicism. Each step someone within would ask — why engage in anything, when it is all going to end? What is the purpose of what you are doing?
And so, I am trying to build the framework for living and need to know where to start?
My goal is to have a framework of living that makes me feel that my life is, and will be, well lived. With that goal in mind, finding appropriate engagements that bring that feeling has the potential to reconcile the awareness of mortality and the need to live.
Why so?
Having the sense of fulfillment does not leave a void inside that could be exploited by the trickeries of the awareness of mortality that can leave us feeling lost. To counteract, what I need to have is the right portfolio of engagements (PoE) enacting which makes me feel that the day that just went by was well lived.
With a lengthening sequence of such days, their sum would be a life well lived, and I would have achieved my goal.
What goes in the PoE is an individualistic choice, the process of finding the right activities, however, is the same. The process is to ensure that activities that go in my PoE aligns with my values. Having such A PoE would bring a sense of involvement in what I am doing, and further, would also give me a sense of purpose and direction and would shield me from discrete random meanderings.
So, the starting point is to build the right framework for living is to know what I value. It may not be readily evident but looking back at personal history may help. In your past, search for activities that brought fulfillment, satisfaction, flow, and joy. Was it learning a new subject or skill, coming up with a seemingly new idea, finding connection in seemingly unrelated things?
A part of activities in the PoE are those that help us achieve a healthy lifespan which is the foundation on which the rest of me stands. Without health, everything else falls wayside. Such activities in the appropriate PoE would be exercising, eating well, having social interactions over pleasant dinner, and having a glass of wine.
Ultimately, activities in my PoE would form a healthy ecosystem that supports and feedback on each other.
And so, at the center of finding the right framework for living is understanding what I value, and once I have the grasp of that, the next step is trial and error to find engagements that align with my values. Once that happens, nagging existential questions of life fall into place.
As I walk along the creek, it is gradually getting wider, and I know soon it will reach its end merge into the lake. It would realize its mortality.
The passage of the creek reminds me of Bertrand Russell said: An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
Ciao.
Summary:
- My goal is to have a framework of living that makes me feel that my life is, and will be, well lived.
- To do that, I need a starting point.
- A general starting point would be understanding what I value, and once I have the grasp of that, by trial and error, finding engagements that align with my values.
- A collection of such engagements would be the correct portfolio of engagements for me.
Related:
Building a framework for living #1: Becoming aware of mortality
Building a framework for living #2: The basic premise for its need
Building a framework for living #3: Follow the advice from stoics
Building a framework for living #4: The basic principles
Building a framework for living #5: Working with the fundamental unit that makes a life
Building a framework for living #6: The alchemy of fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #7: The yardstick for fulfilling days
Building a framework for living #8: What makes a day anyway?
Building a framework for living #9: A strategy to make a day well lived
Building a framework for living #10: Choosing right engagements to make a day well lived.
Building a framework for living #11: Need for aligning engagements with our values
Building a framework for living #12: Other consequences of portfolio of engagements
Building a framework for living #13: An ecosystem of interconnected engagements
